Nevada County picayune., 1887-08-03
AGRICULTURAL.
Comparative profit Of Beet and
 Pork.


 uct could no longer justly be call cd "tbe poor mans meat" For rIauy weeks during the present season the prices for beeves, in. cluding all grades of quality, have been from two to five and q half cents per pound, live weight, and for hogs during inc same period four and a half to five and half cents per pound, also live weights. As the farmer is the producer, II is for him we write, making com parative statement of cost of pro- duction. In ten months from its birth a pig grows to a size it to be marketed, if given good care With ordinary care the beast is salable when one year old; and eX treme range of age woyld be eight months to fifteen months; so far for the hog. To place creditable steer on sale, the anlmal should be three years past, up to four years. Hogs should not cost over eight dollars per head, and these should weigh two hundred and twenty-five to three hundred pounds each; this should repre-. sent eleven dollars and twenty. five cents per hog, al five cents per pound or two hundred and twenty five pounds, or fifteen dol. lars per hog at five cents per pound on three hundred pound weight This calculation, which is moder. ate, shows d handsome profit to the farmer. To place fat steer on the market will cost the pro- ducer tour cents per pound on the farm. The beast, if well bred, ought to weigh gross thirteen or fourteen hundred pounds, and will have cost from ffty-two to if ty five dollars. The profit at an advance of one cent per pound, would be three on steer of thir teen hundred pounds, and four dollars on a steer of fourteen hun dred pounds. Sold on the farm to dealer or speculator, this ad- vance of one cent per pound would be, as cattle are now selling ill the livestock markets, fair and req. sonable profit for the producer.
 What has caused this unusual and unlocked for state of trade in two articles of such varied quail ty? We answer, needless breed ing and overproduction of inferior quality of cattle, with a mad rush to put cattle on the markets be- fore they are ripe and in state to prove profitable 10 the wholesale butcher, whose interests are one with those of the producer. Du ring the weeks of the year when grass-fed steers are largely offer ed for sale, much loss is experi. enced by wholesale butchers, as the cattle dross to low weights; and the steers then coming for ward are invariably either Wes. tern range cattle or low native steers; both classes which require to be we'll matured to he prohta ble when slaughtered. On the 10th of May last, there reached the Jersey City yards thirty-tive black boiled Aberdeen Angus steers, which had been fed in To. wa, and were sold in Chicago to au Eastern wholesale butcher at five dollars and fifteen cents per one hundred pounds. actual gross weight thirteen hundred and forty pounds, and in Jersey City thir- teen hundred pounds-a loss of forty pounds Shrinkage. So com. pact, and well built and fatted were these steers, that they were certain to yield fifty eight pounds net, which would give the whole. sale butcher carcaSes of seven hundred and seventy five pounds to sell, and at current rates he did sell. Suppose there were thirty five Texas steers, grass fed, nine hundred pounds per head to cost three and half cents per pound in Chicago or thirty one dollars and fifty cents per head. These miserable creatures might dress fifty five pounds net, and would then represent four eundred and ninety pounds net, and would be difficult of rale at any price, as cheap COW and bull meat would compete with such rubbish, which is only salable to buyers of the poorest meats.
 The lesson of this to farmers is not to urge them on to overprO-